


Fun Training with the Avatar

by unrelatedchickenfire



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23645965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrelatedchickenfire/pseuds/unrelatedchickenfire
Summary: Toph is teaching Aang earthbending; things take a turn for the deadly when Bumi interferes.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Fun Training with the Avatar

The large rock listed dangerously, atop the artificial hill, perched there only by the stubborn authority of Toph's fatal cachet. The sun was nearly eclipsed by the rock, so that a glaring beam of light threatened to blind Aang and Katara. Toph was obviously oblivious to this unfortunate nuisance, one of many during this wholly unfortunate day.

"Are you serious, Toph? That thing is gonna crush me! And I won't be able to tell how far it is if you blindfold me!" cried Aang desperately, thinking this challenge was unlike any other to which he had been subjected this afternoon. 

Toph tied the cloth around the Avatar's head, at last. "Enough whining, Twinkle Toes. This will be good practice for earthbending rocks from a far distance. Not to mention getting used to the vibrations of the earth through your feet. This'll be the best lesson for you, yet."

"I agree with Toph," Katara corroborated, having watched Aang and Toph train all afternoon. "I think this is going to improve your reflexes even more."

"Thanks, Katara," the Avatar mourned, awaiting the worst humiliation of his life. He knew he couldn't do it. The boulder was too big. "Hey, Toph, what say you make the boulder just a little sma—" 

"Too late," Toph snapped. Aang felt the manifestation of doom dropping onto the smooth ramp and start gaining momentum. 

"UhHu.." He got into his earthbending stance, spreading out his feet. Then he brought them back together and swiftly leaped into the air when he thought the rock was just about near killing him. 

Thoroughly disappointed, Toph shook her head. "Ugh, really? All you had to do was thrust your arms out and stop the rock with the brilliant earthbending you've been doing all day, Twinkle Toes."

"Toph is right, you know. You pussyed out like a little bitch," Katara said, folding her arms.

Aang merely panted with his hands on his knees. He tore the blindfold off and threw it aside, resuming to stare at the ground in a trance. _That rock was going to insta-kill me._

He looked behind him to see Toph smoothing out the boulder even more, as if sharpening a blade. _That rock's_ gotta _be three times my size. And it was going to kill me. It was going to mash me into pulp between its weight and the ground._

"—oh, greatest of the great Avatars, are you listening or what?" Toph was suddenly in his face, slightly towering over him as he was leaning forward. "We're gonna try that again, and this time you won't wimp out. You'll do as I say."

"Yeah, Toph, just give me a second." Aang eventually heaved a deep breath and tried without success to relax his shoulders, returning to his designated post as Toph pushed the rock up the hill, a Sisyphus eternally laboring away at the hands of a sissypuss. When at the top, she turned to look down on Aang. "Okay, you ready?!"

The Avatar swallowed his fear; not really. Still quivering but trying to man up after realizing Katara had been frowning at him the entire time, he strained to hold his bladder as he shouted as firmly as possible, "Yes, Toph!" When really his voice cracked at her name and he glanced nervously at Katara to see her scrunch up her face and cringe slightly away from him. Her unusually cold demeanor wasn't helping his confidence. 

Everyone forgot about the blindfold. But no matter, Aang closed his eyes.

The rock tilted and began rolling down. Aang tried his best to suppress his oncoming panic attack. _Why am I so nervous today? Calm down Aang. You can do this._

He assumed his earthbending stance and readied and braced himself for the rock. In the seconds that followed, as the rock rolled towards him mercilessly, he regained his monkish composure, remembering all of the emotional, physical, and mental training up till this moment. Confidence and tranquility returned. _I can do this._

As the rock neared Aang, Toph felt the chilling sensation of someone nearby, in the bushes. This wasn't supposed to happen. She's able to sense all movements for miles. This busybody had somehow tricked her, and now, she only sensed the person when they thrust up their hands and very clearly earthbended. 

Earth wrapped around Aang's feet, causing him to cry out in surprise, breaking his concentration. All in a moment, as Toph prepared to jump off the hill and rush to where the intruder was, the boulder crashed into the Avatar's lean frame, spattering bright blood all around and at Katara, and rolled beyond him, painted in fresh red, to reveal a harshly scarlet mass of splintering bones and flayed flesh. Toph felt all of this, not believing it. After a second, the trembling figure of Katara screamed. She screamed so loud that Sokka heard it while relaxing in the fissure he was stuck in, alarming him and, no doubt, terrifying him as he remembered to try and vainly squirm out of the hole. 

Toph merely stayed where she was, petrified into inaction, as Aang had been just a few minutes ago. _Was I too pushy with the training? I was, wasn't I?_

_No, the bastard down there did this. He locked Aang in place, knowing he was incapable of earthbending the rock._

"YOU FREAK!!!" Toph screeched like a banshee as she earthbended the entire hill towards the intruder, with the inhuman speed characteristic of her. She pulled the murderer out from the ground with more earth, tightening what felt and sounded like a moaning, old geezer in her earthly grasp.

"King Bumi!" Katara yelled from the ground. "What are you doing here?" The old man did not respond, completely limp in the mound holding him.

"'King Bumi' earthbended and killed Aang!!" Toph sobbed, as she continued to suffocate Bumi. 

He finally answered, weakly, "I... I thought... I thought he could earthbend the rock away from him.. or... slice—"

"No, Bumi, Aang wasn't that good.." Katara whispered, tears still rolling down her face. 

Everyone stood motionless. There was nothing to do but rot inside, never having expected the Avatar, destined to save the world, would die so pitifully under a sphere of dirt that most earthbenders can stop.

Appa lumbered towards the mess that had been Aang. Upon smelling the corpse, he wailed loudly before becoming so still that he might have died.

Toph dared to speak into the silence that seemed to be screaming, or at least as painful. "Was another Avatar born just now?"

Katara dared to reply. "Yes."

"Should we—"

"It's too late Toph."

**Author's Note:**

> Blimey! Another fanfic of mine that I hate and love at the same time! I hated and loved writing it in the two deranged hours in which I chuckled then nearly cried while imagining this happen for real. And boy do I hate and love reading it again! I just thought it might be amusing to present Avatar: The Last Airbender But With Dark Realism to explore what may have happened in the show had its premise not been entirely "family-friendly action adventure tale lead by the invincible protagonist," and boy... I don't know. xD o_o


End file.
